Departure Day and Final Thoughts

What You Think You Know…

4:00 on the dot we were out the door. Jenny did a fantastic job of navigating us in the dark to the parking structure where we were meeting the car rental representative to drop the car. He had already texted he was there waiting and he couldn’t have been nicer.

We entered the airport’s designated business class check in area and when we walked up to the desk the agent asked us what airline. When we told her “Qatar,” she said “Oh you are going to Amsterdam.” When we asked her how she knew that (we were actually going to Doha then switching flights) she said we were the last people to check in even though we were there more than 1 1/2 hours before departure.

We passed through immigration where my passport got the serious once over -page by page- with the officer wanting to know how long I’d be staying in Holland (not too sure why he cared) but my answer sufficed, and I received my exit stamp.

On to security, where Jenny and I were the only ones being screened. No need to take anything out of your bag just send it through. Now…we are used to traveling with Billy, AKA “The gadget guru,” whose carryon is always so full of every sort of instrument you can imagine that 9 times out of 10, he ends up in secondary inspection with 2 of those 9 times him having to try and explain to the officer what the item that got flagged is and isn’t for; he’s even had a few things confiscated along the way. An inspection officer at Heathrow nailed it right on the head once when he told Billy, “This is what we call a very busy bag.” So, secondary inspection is a right of passage when you are traveling with Billy, but never me, until today that is.

Jenny and I watched her bag pass through, my purse pass through and then we watched my bag take the dreaded detour off the main belt. The inspector came over, with two more officers joining him and all I can think is, Oh crap, they think the bag of za’atar mix is pot. Nope.

The guy looks at me and says,” What you have danger in your bag?”

“Dangerous?…Nothing.”

“No! What you have danger?” smirking at me.

Now my heart starts beating a little and I’m thinking, was the bag ever out of my sight? My palms start getting a little sweaty and I’m thinking did this smirking agent just set me up?

“Look,” he says, turning the x-ray monitor so I can see it, “What you see danger?”

I’m looking but don’t know what to look for until Jenny confidently exclaims, “That!” as her finger points to a long thin solid object.

“Yes,” he says smiling at Jenny as though she had done a good job.

Oh shit…

I look at him and say, “it’s a butter knife.”

“Take it out your bag.”

And I start unzipping all my exterior pockets because I have no idea where it is, until I finally discover the culprit. I pull it out like King Arthur pulling Excalibur from the stone, hoping my arse is not going to end up in Omani jail.

He looks it over, I told him I used it to make snacks cause I sure as heck was not about to tell him I used it to dig a cork out of a bottle of wine. He and the other two officers start laughing and tell me, “Ok. No problem.”

Boy how I love the Omanis!

A few steps away Jenny looks at me and says, “I thought you took it out of your bag last night?”

“I did,” I assure her, “but I had grabbed a second knife because I couldn’t find what I had done with the first one…” (Well now I know)

“Mom…” is all I got in return, followed by, “I can’t wait to tell dad.” Which she promptly did by text.

The truth is I took the knives for protection, back on arrival day from the W. I know, not much a dinner knife will do but it was better than nothing in my eyes at the time with all those voices were in my head /“you are two women traveling alone in a Muslim country”; we might be the only guests at the desert camp the second night; “it’s not safe to go to the Middle East…”

BUT knowing what I know now it was ridiculous – absolutely ridiculous! The Omanis are such a kind and gentle people, actually tolerant of every religion and belief. Unlike the high tensions and strict doctrines of the Sunni and Shia muslims of countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran respectively, Omanis are practitioners of a denomination of Islam known as Ibadi, formed some 50 years after the death of Prophet Mohammad. It actually predated both the Sunni and Shia dominations in both regions. Today, Oman is the only Muslim country in the world to have a majority of the Ibadi population. Had I known them, like I know them now, I would never have felt the need to have some sort of protection, though it did come in handy for opening the wine!

There was just beginning to be enough light after takeoff to see the northern and eastern parts of Oman as twilight was gaining ground. I could see those craggy top mountains from above and they were just as awesome from above as they were from the ground.

I am one of those people on planes, that some love to hate. No matter if everyone else has their shade closed, mine is open, my cheek pushed against the pane, nose smashed down trying to see every last bit of the ground beneath me. I then cross check it with the “flight map” on my TV screen which runs the entire length of my trip so I know where I am looking, and today was no different.

Arrival in Doha was a shock. It was dark when we came through on our way to Oman so seeing it for the first time was crazy. What Doha is to Muscat; sun is to snow – they could not be more opposite. The skyscrapers, amusement parks, manufactured beaches, and outrageous villas are all the complete antithesis to Oman. Doha is flashy, Muscat is understated; Doha leaps forth from its environment, Muscat blends in. There was nothing about Doha that appealed.

Seeing the world from 37,000 really is amazing, so is the fact that we flew right over Baghdad and Mosul; something I could never have imagined doing not that long ago. What was more amazing to me were the snow covered mountains in Turkey. It took us an hour to clear them!

Once at the hotel in Amsterdam, Jenny asked me about our trip, had I really enjoyed it and would I ever want to return. She asked if it rates up there with some of our favorites like Myanmar and Peru. “No doubt,” I told her. Oman has to be the best trip we have had for person to person exchanges. The people in Myanmar were wonderfully friendly but in a different way and there was very limited exchange with them due to the language barrier. In Peru, it was the children in the mountain villages who we had the most exchanges with – their excitement and happiness needed no words. But the person to person interactions we had with the Omanis – their genuine interest in us, their enthusiasm for Jenny’s studies; their curiosity on our choice to come; their willingness and wanting to help – all unmatched by any previous travels.

Not once, did we get a bad vibe or feel like we were unwelcome – even the kid who shooed me away from my parking spot did so politely and with a smile. We never once felt disrespected for either being female or for being a westerner. We encountered nothing but genuineness, kindness and conviviality from every single person we had the true pleasure of meeting along the way.

What we thought we knew; we didn’t. What we have tagged the people and culture of an entire region, is incorrect. I, we, walk away from this trip enlightened. Oman is not the Middle East and the Middle East is not Oman but a different perspective was born from this trip, and for that we are grateful.